Let's find out.
Monstopia (69 Minutes - Wishlisted But Only After Some Thought)
This one racked up the longest playing time of the six, which has to go in its favor. I didn't finish it, though. I haven't finished any of the demos this time around which is very unusual for me. I think it's just too hot and summery for me to want to spend a long time in front of the screen just now.
Based on the description on its Steam Store page, Monstopia looked like it was going to be a fairly familiar sort of game. I was expecting some kind of crime story, most likely a murder, because it's nearly always a murder, isn't it? Something with clues and suspects and a plot, anyway.
This is what it says in the developer's description. See what you make of it:
"This is a casual detective game featuring interview simulation and "find the differences" gameplay. You will play as an ambitious young demon, determined to transform the dilapidated park into the most thrilling horror-themed attraction."
"A casual detective game" is what made me jump to the conclusion there'd be something to detect. Like, y'know, a crime, maybe? I assumed the ""find the differences" gameplay" " and the "interview simulation" were just descriptions of how you'd gather evidence and prove your solutions. And I took it the rest was just the set-up.
Well that was mistake. Monstopia is nothing like any of that at all.
Here's how it really works. There's a short scene-setting introduction where a few basics are explained, including the backstory. You're reviving an old theme park, which you and then a series of applicants for jobs appear in front of you, as a demon yourself, hope to bring back into service as a place where monsters can legally enjoy scaring humans and get paid for it.
Your job is to interview applicants for various posts in the park and assign the right monster to the right job. Most importantly, you need to weed out any horrible humans trying to pass themselves off as monsters so they can sneak into the park and put a lovely monster out of a job. Humans! Euughh! Ptui!
The game has a fairly unsubtle subtext about outsiders and conformity and acceptance that I initially found uncomfortable in its enthusiastic advocacy for exclusionism. Fortunately, that drifts out of focus quite quickly and after the first few applicants I'd mostly forgotten about it. I was enjoying weeding out those pesky humans every bit as much as a good demon ought.
To begin with, I found doing that a little harder than I might have done had I paid more attention to the pictures. I hadn't realized just how much is explained visually rather than verbally. You get a guidebook telling you the salient differences between the various monster species and I read it pretty thoroughly but I didn't immediately notice there are also some very helpful illustrations.
I couldn't figure out why I kept making the wrong decisions over some applicants because I thought they either did or didn't have the appropriate "Special Body Patterns". It turned out I was taking things like stripes or spots to be patterns when in fact what I should have been looking for were some very specific, small colored blotches, as shown in the diagrams I'd been ignoring.
As well as a wider variety of monsters, more posts open up, too, and it becomes important that you fit the right applicant to the exactly appropriate role. Then human customers start complaining some monsters smell bad so you have to test for personal hygiene before deciding who can work in public areas and who's best kept safely behind the scenes. Similarly, some monsters can't work in certain environments, so you have to check for that, too.
You also supposedly have to take the applicants' preferrences into consideration, while also making sure the job you're about to offer them doesn't have some proviso such as no Undead to be offered work in food preparation. That didn't seem to work as described, though, because I found if I tried to employ a Monster to do anything other than their preference, they'd have a hissy fit and storm out, telling me I didn't know how to manage a business whereas, if I just plonked them down where they wanted be, regardless of any proscriptions against it, everything was fine.
I found all of this quite enjoyable. It feeds the innate faculty all humans have for pattern-matching - ironically, considering it's a demon doing choosing. You also get scored after every round based on how well the park is doing financially, how satisfied your employees are and how much the public are enjoying it. I like getting scored for things I've done so that was nice, too.
Mostly, though, it's interview after interview. You'd think that might get repetitive but every applicant is different enough that I never felt bored. The visuals are excellent throughout, stylish and attractive. The differences that dictate who's a real monster and who's a pesky human trying to pass are always clear and easy to spot, or they are once you understand what you're looking for, at least.
The writing is quite entertaining. Every applicant gets a couple of lines telling, you a little about themselves and what they think they'd be good at doing. Occasionally one will have a lot more to say although I was never sure if that had any gameplay significance or was just added color.
Monsters are suitably outraged if you mistake them for human but humans accept discovery calmly in a kind of "It's a fair cop, Guv!" fashion. I felt bad for a couple of the humans, who'd clearly put a lot of work into their costumes and seemed like they might be decent employees but there were others who were just taking the piss. I was glad to see the back of them!
Technically the demo played flawlessly for me. No bugs or glitches. As the opening card reveals, before you find the button to select English as your language of choice, the game is translated and there is the occasional spelling or grammatical error but mostly it's a very good translation, idiomatic and with natural flow.
I'd have no hesitation in recommending this game to anyone who likes management sims. Not so much if it's a detective game you're after. If I was in the market for a game of this type, I'd have definitely added it to my Wishlist. I wasn't, though, so I didn't.
Except now I've written all of this, I feel like maybe I would like to play it through to the end after all. So onto the Wishlist it goes!
Really, the only negative thing I have to say about Monstopia is that I do think the developers might make it a bit clearer in the description what sort of game it is. Call me difficult if you like but I do like at least a little actual detection in my detective games...
And once again, I've run on long enough I feel I ought to make this a single-demo post. That three-gamer I did at the start is looking like a real outlier now, isn't it?
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